Death was quieter than he expected.
There was no tunnel of light. No gods. No voice asking him if he wanted a second chance. Just a crushing stillness, like being buried under wet concrete while the world forgot to breathe.
Then came pain.
Sharp. Immediate. All-consuming.
He inhaled and choked.
Smoke burned his lungs. His body convulsed, muscles screaming as cold stone pressed against his back. He rolled instinctively, skin scraping against gravel, and vomited bile onto the ground.
His eyes snapped open.
Fire.
Buildings were burning—wooden buildings, lacquered roofs collapsing inward as flames devoured them. The air smelled of ash, blood, and scorched iron. Screams cut through the night, raw and animal, punctuated by the wet sound of steel tearing through flesh.
His mind reeled.
What the hell—
A kunai slammed into the ground inches from his face.
He froze.
Footsteps approached. Measured. Unhurried.
"Another survivor?" a voice said calmly, almost bored.
He looked up.
The man wore a Konoha flak jacket, face splattered with blood that wasn't his own. His eyes were red—not from smoke.
Red with tomoe.
The world tilted violently.
Sharingan.
Memory crashed into him like a tidal wave.
Naruto.
Uchiha.
Massacre.
"No," he rasped, voice shredded. "No—this is wrong—"
The shinobi frowned. "He's delirious."
Steel flashed.
Instinct—something older than thought—moved him.
His body twisted, shoulder screaming as the blade grazed him instead of piercing his throat. He rolled, grabbed the fallen kunai from the ground, and slashed upward with everything he had.
The blade bit into flesh.
The man staggered back, eyes wide in shock. "You—!"
Blood sprayed hot across his face.
The shinobi collapsed, gurgling.
Silence swallowed the moment.
The boy—because he was a boy, his hands small, his limbs thin—stared at the corpse. His heart thundered so hard he thought it might burst.
He was breathing too fast.
I just killed someone.
His hands were shaking.
That's when he saw them.
Reflected faintly in a shard of broken roof tile near his feet.
Red eyes. One tomoe each.
The world narrowed.
"No…" he whispered.
The memories were no longer abstract. They weren't borrowed knowledge from a manga or anime watched years ago in another life.
They were his.
A name surfaced.
Uchiha Ren.
Seven years old.
Civilian-born mother. Shinobi father. Low-status branch family, barely acknowledged. A child who lived on the edge of the compound, who trained late, who watched older cousins awaken Sharingan and told himself it didn't matter.
Tonight, everyone was dead.
Ren's knees buckled.
He didn't scream. There was no strength left for that. Just a hollow ache, expanding inside his chest, crushing everything it touched.
Another explosion rocked the street.
Ren flinched and looked up.
More shinobi moved through the smoke—black cloaks, masked faces. Efficient. Surgical. Not looters. Not rebels.
Executioners.
His breathing steadied—not because he was calm, but because something cold was wrapping around his heart.
Hatred.
Pure, clean, focused hatred.
He wiped blood from his face and forced himself to stand.
Running blindly would get him killed. Staying would guarantee it.
He turned and slipped into an alley, small body moving between shadows as another scream died behind him.
---
He didn't remember how long he ran.
Minutes. Hours. Time broke apart in the chaos.
By the time dawn threatened the horizon, he was deep beneath the village, hidden in a drainage culvert choked with stagnant water and filth. His clothes were soaked, his teeth chattered, and his body trembled from shock and chakra exhaustion he didn't yet understand.
But he was alive.
Barely.
Ren pressed his forehead against the cold stone and exhaled slowly.
I died once already.
The memory of his previous life surfaced unbidden—dim apartment light, the hum of a fan, a phone slipping from numb fingers. A random death. Meaningless.
This one wasn't.
This world didn't care about fairness. It cared about strength, preparation, and timing.
And tonight had taught him one thing very clearly.
The Uchiha didn't die because they were weak.
They died because they trusted the village.
Ren's fingers curled into fists.
"Never again," he whispered to the dark.
Something stirred behind his eyes.
Heat. Pressure.
Pain flared, sharp and sudden, like needles driven into his skull. He gasped, clutching his face as blood leaked from the corners of his eyes and dripped into the filthy water below.
His vision sharpened.
Every crack in the stone. Every ripple in the water. Every distant footstep above ground.
The Sharingan spun.
A second tomoe formed.
Ren laughed—a broken, breathless sound that echoed faintly through the culvert.
"So this is how it starts," he murmured.
No prophecy.
No chosen one.
Just a child forged in betrayal, reborn into a clan that specialized in turning hatred into power.
He didn't know about Danzo yet.
He didn't know about Itachi's full burden.
He didn't know about the war waiting down the road.
But he knew this:
He would survive.
He would grow strong enough that no one could decide his fate again.
And one day—whether the village liked it or not—the name Uchiha would stop being whispered like a ghost story.
It would be spoken with fear.